It`s The Real Old Ballgame

Senior League Baseball `Better Than A Fantasy Camp`

JERICHO, N.Y. — Frank Menna pulled up at third base thinking he had a stand-up triple and looked over at the bench to see what all the screaming was about.

``Home! Home!`` they were yelling, and Menna looked back to see the center-fielder throwing the ball back to the infield. Menna had just enough gas left in the tank to get home safely, the first of his two home runs for the afternoon.

The year after Babe Ruth hit his last major-league home run, Menna was born in the Bronx, not far from Yankee Stadium. Now Menna, 53, is a meat cutter on Long Island who spends Sunday afternoons from April through August playing left field for the North Shore Mariners of the Long Island Men`s Senior Baseball League.

He had to talk his way onto a team.

``Last year I called Steve Sigler and said I was interested in playing,`` Menna recalled. ``I`d seen in the local paper where he was organizing a baseball league for guys over 30. He told me he`d get back to me in a couple of weeks. A few weeks later, I hadn`t heard anything, so I called him back.

`` `Maybe you think I`m a fat, pot-bellied slob,` I told him, `but you take your best player and I`ll hit the ball 50 feet farther than he does.` `` Menna, who last played in the minor leagues in 1958 and counted Earl Weaver, Cal Ripken Sr. and Bo Belinsky among his teammates, is not the longest hitter in the league. That honor probably belongs to Scott Munoz of the Jericho Mets. But in the league`s elaborate statistical tables, compiled each week by a computer service, Menna`s in the top 10 in triples with three.

``I`m still not too old for this game,`` Menna said.

He`s not the oldest player in the league, begun last year with just four teams and expanded to 17 teams this season. Two players, both outfielders, are 55.

``Most of us have sons who play Little League,`` said Sigler, 38, a business executive on weekdays and the league`s top pitcher on Sundays (8-0, 66 strikeouts in 67 innings, 3.49 ERA). ``What I`m trying to prove is that after 30, you don`t have to throw away the cleats and play softball. That`s the myth I`m trying to dispel.``

Three years ago when Sigler was a softball player, he realized the slower, smaller game wasn`t filling the void left after he quit baseball in college. He organized some pickup baseball games among other managers and parents of his sons` Little League, and the LIMSBL was born. Since then, his wife has stayed home Sunday afternoons to field calls from men interested in signing up while he plays ball.

He`s taken more than 500 calls himself, and now he`d like to get over-30 baseball leagues started in other cities, including the San Francisco Bay Area. So far, newspaper notices in St. Petersburg, Fla., have produced the most responses.

Sigler attributes part of the league`s success to the absence of recently retired college and minor-league players who might intimidate less-skilled players. There are players in the league with upper-level experience, but they`ve been away from the game 10 or 15 years, long enough for their competitive advantage to fade. Most players last swung at real baseballs as teen-agers, he said.

``They`ve got Stan Musial League to play in,`` he said of recent college or professional players. ``Why would the good players want to play with us?`` ``This was perfect for me,`` said Jericho Mets outfielder Russ Balber, 33, who retired from the minors in 1973. ``I think when some of the guys on the team heard I`d played in the minors, they were expecting a lot more out of me. And I`m probably putting a lot of pressure on myself.``

The other major factor in the league`s success has been the rules. Managers must bat a minimum of 10 players, though only nine play in the field, and they have the option of batting everyone on the bench. Except for pitchers, there`s free substitution. No intentional collisions with fielders are allowed, and metal cleats are illegal.

It cost $475 per 15-player team to play this season: $350 for the computer service that compiles and publishes the stats, $75 for insurance and a $50 forfeit fee. Each player must purchase a uniform for about $50, and there is a $3-per-player charge each week to pay the two umpires who work the games.

``Pitching is the one rare commodity on my team,`` said Ron Shapiro, 35, infielder-manager of the Mariners. ``For most teams, pitching is the toughest position to fill because it takes a lot of old arms to pitch nine innings.``

Earlier this season, a pitcher`s arm broke in the middle of his windup. The loud crack sounded like a rubber band popping in the infield, said a player who remembered the incident. But most injuries so far have been far less serious, usually hamstring pulls from runners trying to stretch doubles into triples.

Sigler has a teammate who`s a chiropractor, and after he pitches, he makes two visits a week.

Fred Scheiner played some college ball at Long Island University 23 years ago. Now he has an 18-year-old son who`s a college player, and he`s the No. 3-ranked pitcher in innings pitched and eighth in strikeouts in the senior league. He waited 44 years to achieve his dream of getting on the mound.

``This is better than going to the Mets fantasy camp,`` said pitcher Joe Prisciandaro, 38, who underwent knee surgery in midseason and is playing again. ``It`s every week, and it`s cheaper.``